Partners
by BeshterAngelus
Summary: Fox Mulder doesn't need a partner or want a partner. But he has one whether he likes it or not.
1. Nightmares

Character: Fox Mulder

Fandom: The X-Files

Rating: PG-13

Prompt: Nergal: You've come back to save the children?

Mandy: Yeah, what's up with that?

Grim: Umm... well... I'm just taking them with me so I can eat them later.

Setting: Pilot

* * *

There was one comfort in my life…the nightmare hadn't changed in twenty years.

"Fox, it's your move." Samantha crossed her skinny arms across her nightgown, pissed off I was taking my sweet time. It was part of the game. Eight-year-olds had no patience, if I waited her out, she'd give something away.

"No cheating, dork," her green eyes narrowed at me as I coolly studied her pieces. Sam was always predictable, easy to read. She as just a kid, she hadn't learned that the point of _Stratego _was strategy. She usually stuck her flag in the bottom, left corner, surrounded by enough bombs to blow up a third-world country. I let my eyes flicker there briefly as she scrunched her nose.

Predictable…my sister, if anything, was predictable.

"If you cheat, I'll tell Mom," she hissed.

"And she'll do what," I taunted, reaching for a piece and placing it on the board again. "Your move, baby."

"Stop calling me baby," she demanded, carelessly grabbing one of her pieces and moving it, without even thinking about what she was doing. God, it was boring playing with her.

"God, you're bad at this."

"Don't say God's name in vain, Foxy." She knew I hated that. I threw a discarded piece at her.

"Its not like we go to church anyway, who the fuck cares?"

I might as well have said I drowned kittens in the bathtub and shot puppies. Her eyes rounded like saucers in her pointed face as one finger pointed at me as if I'd said that in the middle of Sunday School. "You'll be in so much trouble," she moaned half in warning, half in delight at the idea.

"Not if I you don't tell."

"Make me," she snickered, popping up and dancing away from the board, preparing for a fight. Honestly, she was tiny, and I was big…or bigger. Not as big as my Dad yet, but nearly as tall as Mom, even at twelve. It was nothing to sit on Samantha until she squealed and gave in. But it was almost eight, why bother? _The Magician _was coming on anyway.

"You'll be in bed when she gets in anyway." See, I can show some maturity. I am growing up; see how adult I can be?

"Don't change the channel," Sam shrieked, throwing herself at the television before I could reach it. "I want to watch this show."

"Dad said I could watch _The Magician." _He hadn't, but it was the only counter I had for screaming, whining, annoying little sister.

"I'm telling Mom," she howled, grabbing for my arm on the TV dial in a futile attempt to stop me from having my way. Seriously, you'd have thought she'd learn by now I'm older, bigger, smarter, and can beat her ass. I wonder sometimes if she's really my parent's child or not, she's too stupid to be my sister.

"Quit being a buttmunch!" She stomped her feet as if this would somehow magically make me do what she wanted. It didn't. So she chose to scream at me, the high pitched, annoying, nails-on-a-chalkboard noise that got under my skin, wormed into my brain, and usually caused me to either pop her or give in.

I probably would have smacked her if the lights hadn't gone out.

"Fox," Samantha's angry shrieks dissolved into a frightened whimper as I blinked, my eyes trying to adjust to the sudden dark. "What's going on?"

"Probably just the power out let me go get a flash…"

The windows flood with light so white it sears my eyes as I cover them, Samantha's cries now terrified beside me.

"Fox…what's going on?"

I can't see, but I can hear her as she screams and I fight to try and make sense of what is going on. Head pounding, I squint through the light surrounding me, as my sister floats away, limp as a dishrag in the middle of the air, nothing supporting her as her pale, flowered nightgown trailed in the air.

This isn't happening, this couldn't be happening, this isn't real….

"Samantha!" My voice catches, rough and tripping as I stumble backwards, falling, trying to get to anything that will help…a phone, the police? My parents were next door, I could call them; tell them what was going on, they could stop this.

That's when I saw them. Tall, dark shapes in the white, faceless except for long, thin arms and legs, misshapen heads. Monsters…monsters like I had seen in my nightmares. Monsters had come to take my sister away.

My father's gun was in a box on a shelf so high I couldn't reach it without climbing. I wasn't tall enough to manage it as it skittered off my fingertips and fell, broken, to the floor. It's a wonder that the gun didn't go off then, but I snagged it in my childish hands, trying to hold it and aim like my father taught me, but I failed. Even as I held the weapon up, something stopped me, caused me to freeze, too terrified to breath almost as my sister screamed my name over and over, pleading for my help.

_Fox….Fox help me! Fox!_

"This is Fox Mulder, I'm not in right now, leave a message."

Samantha's name dies on my lips, my heart racing as my machine beeps loud enough to wake the dead.

"Agent Mulder, this is Terry from Chief Blevins office. He's asked me to remind you that you had a 9 AM meeting this morning…."

Blevins, calling at home….shit! My eyes snap open, looking at my watch. Nine fifteen, fucking hell.

"I'm sure that something has come up unexpectedly, please call me back when you get this message so we can reschedule your meeting."

Fucking hell. I scrub at my perspiration-covered face, the blinding light and echo of my sister's screams still reverberating in my soul. Just great, a meeting with the boss who hates me, and now I'm late. No matter how polite Blevins' secretary was being, I could see his beady-eyed disapproval through that message. Another fuck up, another waste of FBI resources, the lecture was so old now I wondered why he even called a meeting. What would the punishment be this time, I wondered, the rack? Perhaps a caning? I couldn't get lucky enough to get a pretty, blonde intern and a cat-o-nine tails.

Yesterday's dress shirt clung to my sticky skin, wet through with sweat. Yeah, Blevins wasn't getting me for his dressing down session till I cleaned up for it at least. Make an impression when they are kicking you in the balls, Mulder. Don't let the man see you sweat. Blevins was a monkey anyway, pissed off that his perfect section was being ruined by one maverick agent who had a penchant for chases filled with UFO sightings and haunted houses, just shut up, smile, make him happy, I could get back to the basement and to my work.

As long as he leaves me alone to do my work in peace, he can fuck me up the ass all he wants.


	2. Dana K Scully

Character: Fox Mulder

Fandom: The X-Files

Rating: PG-13

Prompt: You're struttin' into town like you're slingin' a gun

Just a small town dude with a big city attitude

Honey are ya lookin' for some trouble tonight

Well all right

Just like Jesse James

Vol 2. Week 27

Setting: Pilot

___________________

My tongue sucked the salt gently off of one sunflower seed, slipping it between my teeth as I cracked it gently. Not hard enough to shatter the shell, but enough that I could probe the small kernel out, picking out the spent remains and tossing them to an ever growing pile on my desk. It sat there, wedged between a stack of unread newspapers, and a small forest of half-empty coffee cups, threatening to spill on the personnel file I had managed to purloin from an all to friendly office intern who had a soft spot for my smile. Easier and faster than having Frohike run the file, and slightly more legal, after all I was simply running a background check as an officer of the law.

Dana K. Scully.

My work, my life, my entire world was not being placed in the hands of one Dana Katherine Scully, my brand new partner. The idea wrangled like three-day-old pizza in my stomach, but what could I do? Blevins had been angling at the idea for months, annoyed that I had no oversight on my work, no objective voice. I'd hoped if I ignored him long enough he'd go away. He simply just found someone bigger and badder to whine to. And now I was being stuck with…what? All Blevins told me about Dana K. Scully was that she was a pathologist out of Quantico. Brilliant, an egghead who never left the morgue. The conversations at her dinner parties must be scintillating.

Who was she anyway? And why her? Images of some middle-aged, stout hausfrau with no personality flittered to my mind, a scientist with a badge and a gun and no sense of humor whatsoever. It would be my luck to be assigned a partner like that. After all when it came down to it, this was a punishment from on high. Fox, you've been a naughty boy, now we have to put a babysitter over you so you don't waste taxpayer money jerking off to alien conspiracies and paranormal activity. A spy….that was what they were sending me. Someone to note down every break fro FBI code, every strange conclusion I jumped to, to call me out on ever theory that didn't fit into a neatly labeled little box.

That was what I felt Dana Scully would be in a nutshell. But I'd yet to open the file and prove it. I glance at it nervously, almost afraid for my worst fears to be proven out. There were many ways you could tear down a man, force him into submission. Could I tough it out? Make this one leave in frustration? Or would she be good enough to shut me down without even the bat of one bland, glazed eye?

"Who are you, Agent Scully," I whispered, as I opened the file up in one quick move, almost like ripping a bandage off. A jumble of paperwork and reports greeted me, and an ID photo stapled to the inside cover, along with the vital statistics of my new partner, at least the ones that the HR department cared about. I studied the small color photo briefly.

Well she certainly wasn't middle-aged. Nor was she a hausfrau. God, she hardly looked old enough to hold a gun! I checked her date of birth, February 23, 1964. Not even thirty yet. A pale, delicate, earnest face under a shock of what could be reddish hair, the photo was poor and my color-blindness made distinguishing the difference between red and brown difficult. But if I had to take a guess, she was a red head. Could be pretty in a different light, certainly not in the pictures HR took. All of those photos look as if they had been taken at a drunken frat party at 2 AM.

God, she still looked impossibly young for this. Like Clarice Starling made real. This was going to be their spy? I frowned as I flipped through the rest of her personal information, scanning out the pertinent details. Father was career Navy, a rear admiral. That didn't bode well. Military brats all tended to have sticks up their asses as far as I could tell, their spines lashed to the code of regulations their parents grew up with. If she followed Daddy Dear's footsteps into the FBI, chances were it was because she had a particular sense of justice and honor that seemed to go with most of the type in the Bureau who hated me. Great.

Maybe they weren't so crazy picking this one after all.

She wasn't stupid, that was a good thing, not that she would be if she got into the pathology program at Quantico. It was the best, and her background set her up for that. Undergraduate work at the University of Maryland…smart kids school…no Oxford, but still, she graduated top of her class, and in Physics too. I hated to admit that did impress me. Oxford or no, Psychology hardly held a candle to Physics. And she wrote a paper there too, questioning Einstein even. I picked a copy of it out of the stack of other random papers. Questioning his theory on paradoxes. Well, well, this Scully could go against the established, accepted order, question things and throw possibilities out there if necessary. Perhaps she wouldn't completely laugh off his theories, or if she did at least she would give him enough credence to do it in a logical, scientific fashion.

Perhaps…

Her medical work was done at Stanford, one of the top programs, in surgery. That would explain the pathology, though she had started in cardiology. Interesting. Someone in her family suffer from heart problems? Perhaps the subject just interested her in passing, she didn't stay with it, leaving medicine behind for the Bureau. A curious point in her past, but nothing untoward, perhaps she got done with medical school and realized she had things she wanted to do in her life that didn't include being tied down in a hospital. That spoke a lot to her character; most young people would be throwing themselves out of a program like Stanford's into high paying jobs at established hospitals and research programs, looking to pay off their enormous, student loan debt. But she chose a path less traveled. So this Dana Scully was a bit of a rebel, a maverick. Maybe she wasn't so hidebound after all.

I delved into her Quantico files, curious to see how a woman with the smarts of Dana Scully would stack up. Near the top of her class in everything, completely expected. This woman was an overachiever, sought to do her best at everything. Seeking approval? Perhaps from a powerful figure in her life? If I had to lay odds, I would bet it was the father, a rear admiral, she must have looked up to him. She wasn't the oldest child in her family, but she was a middle child. It must be difficult to stand out in a family of four; perhaps this was the only way she could make her mark. So she worked hard, nothing wrong with that. Hell, her academic background looked eerily similar to mine.

I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. Two workaholics at opposite ends from each other….at least I won't be lonely writing up reports I suppose. Still, for all of her promise, she's been shuffled away in Quantico for two years, cutting up dead bodies and teaching new recruits. She must be good at what she does, but why drag her out of that? Why throw her into active fieldwork in a division that most people thought was infested with the plague? Her record with the Bureau was exemplary, spotless, not a single administrative reprimand on her plate. Who in the hell thought it was a good idea to send her down here?

Was she supposed to be some shining example? Look, Mulder, here's how to be a good boy with the FBI? Jesus, either someone didn't know me, or someone really hated her. I almost felt sorry for this Scully person. Inside of a week on a case with me, Little Miss Perfect will fall apart, screaming to Blevins I was a madman and needed to be shut down. That, or she would stubbornly stick it out, just to prove that she could and that I wouldn't cow her, one or the other.

Flipping her file back together, I studied her photo again. Jesus, she looked barely more than eighteen. So this was the woman they were sending down to rein me in and make me behave? Well, best of luck, Dana Scully. We'll see how long you last on my next adventure. Kids disappearing in Bellefleur, Oregon, I wonder what her Einstein questioning, Stanford medical education would have to say about that.


	3. The Spy

Character: Fox Mulder

Fandom: The X-Files

Rating: PG-13

Prompt: [Holding up a wad of cash]

Marla Singer: You're not getting this back. I consider it asshole tax. Vol 2 Week 25

Setting: Pilot

* * *

_Who'd you piss off to get this detail, Scully?_

_Actually, I'm looking forward to working with you. I've heard a lot about you._

_Oh really? I was under the impression that you were sent to spy on me._

I could be a real asshole sometimes, I concede that, especially as Dana Scully eyed me with her frank, blue eyes, before gracing me with the smallest of knowing smiles. I had the distinct feeling that despite my best wounded outsider façade, the good doctor saw right through me, or at least was polite enough to ignore my shit. She at least didn't start quoting to me all the possibilities of why it was pointless for me to pursue a case of this nature. In fact, unless I mistook the small curve of her mouth and the lift of her delicate chin, she saw this as something of a challenge. Would she let Spooky Mulder run her out of his office, out of his work, and run back to Blevins, weirded out of her scientific, analytical mind? Or would she stick it out and see where the ride took her?

"The answers are there…you just have to know where to look." She arched one eyebrow to her copper-colored hair. And yes, in the light of my office I could tell it was red instead of brown, personal colorblindness not withstanding. Scully looked so serious standing there in her standard, bland, feminine FBI suit and three-inch heels trying desperately to add authority to her diminutive height. She sounded so confident in that statement.

Perhaps she was. I can't imagine much in this world had really rocked Dana Scully's boat, not with her Stanford medical degree and her Einstein paper. Perhaps a cooler, more suave agent with an eye to her figure over her brains might have said something witty or welcoming. But I was an asshole, as I had already established. And I couldn't help but let my inner dick open his mouth up as I settled behind my cluttered desk.

"That's why they put the 'I' in 'FBI'. See you tomorrow morning, Scully." I pushed my reading glasses up my nose. "Bright and early. We leave for the very plausible state of Oregon at 8 AM."

Again the small, enigmatic smile, one that would make Da Vinci wet himself to paint. Then she quietly turned and made for my door, head high, shoulder's back, like any good daughter of a Naval captain would do. I watched her as she made her way out the door, contemplating this new partner of mine. Certainly not what I expected, but then nothing about Dana Scully was anything like I expected. Eager, inexperienced, painfully young, yes, but there was a keen intelligence in the serious brain of hers, one that wasn't scared away from the strange and the weird. If anything she seemed eager to meet the strange and the weird. Unusual, most people who got into the FBI as a racket preferred the easily explainable. Scully didn't seem to be easily rattled, not by aliens, cattle mutilations, strange compounds, or my caustic sense of humor.

And it certainly didn't hurt that all of that was contained in the body of a very attractive, stunningly pretty woman. Not that Dr. Scully had a thing to fear from me, which was more than I could say for most of the other men in this office. I could guarantee one ear to the ground in the men's restroom would turn up a lot of masculine viewpoints about young Ms. Scully, all with speculative eyes turned to me. But I had been down the forbidden route of partner relationships before, and had a lonely apartment to show for it. Besides which, the long and the short of Scully being here was to spy on me. I knew that, she knew that, might as well call a spade a spade. And as long as she was going to write her reports on me and question my work, best not complicate that with a sexual harassment lawsuit. After all, that might end up in the report as well.

Besides, I reasoned, staring at the door thoughtfully, Scully wasn't much my type. Too short by far, too serious. looking for the rational first and foremost, somehow I could see debate on our cases going together about as well as hot oil and water. I usually tended to go for tall, cool brunettes, with devastating wit and an interest in picking my brain and not just the clothes off of me. But then again that had been my only two serious relationships as an adult, and both of those had been unmitigated failures. I suppose that's why every other woman I had been with of late was silly, young, and usually blonde, with the conversation skill slightly more than that of a giggling teenager.

Was there any wonder why Frohike envied my collection of porn? At least Miss July didn't call and leave angry messages on my office voicemail. Something I might have to warn Scully about should she become a constant figure around the office. I wasn't so sure I wanted her to get a good impression of me. As intelligent, attractive, and no nonsense as she was, did I really care if she respected me as a person?

Maybe…just a little…


	4. Just One Of Those Things

Character: Fox Mulder

Fandom: The X-Files

Rating: PG-13

Prompt: Just One of Those Things-John Barrowman Vol 28

Setting: Pilot

AN: Borrowed Dialogue

* * *

Perhaps it was the childish part of my soul that had never grown up after my sister's disappearance, but I was very disappointed I had yet to do anything to truly and completely fluster the unflappable Agent Scully yet. So far alien abductions, cattle mutilations, and turbulence on the way to landing in Portland had done nothing to unnerve the small, petite woman beside me, who now coolly flipped through the very same file she'd been pouring over since we left DC. Honestly, what in the hell could she have possibly missed behind those giant, owl-like reading glasses of hers? Hell, I got carsick reading like that through winding highway roads. She acted as if she were ensconced in the Stanford Medical library, meticulously taking notes on some foreign disease.

I lazily flicked a sunflower seed out of the window, expecting her to wrinkle her nose in disgust. I don't think she noticed. The woman must have ice running through her veins. I wonder what it would take to even get a bit of a rise out of her? The psychologist in me knows this is my typical, defensive behavior, the childish response of a creature of habit, one who doesn't want anyone new in his life to poke at his old wounds. But the asshole in me doesn't seem to care.

"You didn't mention yesterday this case has already been investigated." Her soft, alto voice was pointed and disapproving. I figured she'd catch on to that aspect eventually. I shrugged, crunching another seed deliberately, eyes never flickering from the road.

"Yeah, the FBI got involved after the first three deaths when local authorities failed to turn up any evidence. Our boys came out here, spent a week, and enjoyed the local salmon, which with a little lemon twist, is just to die for, if you'll pardon the expression."

Well at least I amused her. She shot me a tight smile as if to say she could tolerate my flippant, boyish humor. Point for Scully, I suppose. I shrugged, continuing. "Without explanation, they were called back in. The case was reclassified and buried in the X-files, till I dug it up last week."

"And you found something they didn't?" There was the skepticism I'd been waiting for. I murmured an affirmative, but gave no details. Let the good doctor with her notes figure it out. Clearly that was what she was doing as she ruffled through the pages.

"The autopsy reports of the first three victims show no unidentified marks or tissue samples. But those reports were signed by a different medical examiner than the latest victim."

Impressive. "That's pretty good, Scully." On her first shot too. Perhaps being a file nerd had its merits after all.

"Better than you expected, or better than you hoped?" Her eyebrows shot up challengingly, something dangerous glinting in those frank, blue eyes of hers. I had challenged her…and clearly this was the sort of intellectual tête-à-tête that the good doctor appreciated. Maybe Scully wouldn't be so easy to spook out after all.

"Well…I'll let you know when we get past the easy part." I said it just to be provoking; I recognized that, just to raise the ire a tad. I was surprised when instead of becoming indignant, she laughed at me instead, a low, warm chuckle as she shook her head.

Just what sort of bullshit did those brothers of hers put her through when she wouldn't even pat an eyelash at me?

"Is the medical examiner a suspect?"

"We won't know that until we do a little grave digging. I've arranged to exhume one of the other victims' bodies to see if we can get a tissue sample to match the girl's. You're not squeamish about that kind of thing, are you?"

I couldn't imagine she was as a pathologist, but you never know. Judging from her last name I would lay odds she was raised good, Irish Catholic, and the religious, even the non-practicing religious, often had funny views on that sort of thing. But she seemed to be only mildly concerned. "I don't know. I've never had the pleasure."

I of course had something witty and flippant to say, but the radio chose that time to start loosing signal, screeching in high-pitched static as I reached to try and readjust it. Strange, I frowned, the noise reaching to decibels that caused Scully to cover her ears, glaring at me as if I had something to do with it. I wish, I thought madly, pulling the car over as my mind raced over all the details of the case. Disappearing children, lost memories, missing time, now add electric anomalies to the list. I had glanced up at the sky as I pulled the car to a stop, my heart leaping to beat an excited rhythm as I repressed the grin that tugged in excitement at my mouth. This had been the first electric anomaly like this I had run across during a case, the first time I'd hit real, physically proof like this. Somewhere near hear had to be proof, real, physical proof of sort of phenomenon I had only read about up to this point. It was the electro-magnetic disruption of some sort of alien technology, one that often presaged contact of some kind with an extra-terrestrial entity.

What in the world would the good doctor have to say about that, I privately gloated, as I leapt out of the car and quietly rounded to the trunk. I said nothing as she steps out after me, following me to the back, her eyes widening in that look of hers, one I was beginning to become familiar with as her "politely confused as hell" look.

"What was that?" She demanded, as if I had something to do with the situation, suspiciously watching me as I popped the back. As cool as she was playing this, obviously Scully's bullshit meter was on overdrive. I ignored it as shuffled through out bags and pulled out what I wanted…a can of florescent spray paint.

I admit…it's not every guy who carries spray paint with them. And hell, the only real reason I had it was because I knew we were trekking into the Oregon woods. While I felt OK enough with my wildlife skills to perhaps make it all right, I had no idea how much up close and personal time the doctor had with a tree when it wasn't in the form of an ancient, medical tome. But I neglected to explain this fact as I quietly walked the few paces back from the car, to the spot where the anomaly began, and popped the top. The fumes nearly gagged me as I worked silently, a quick "X" now glowing orange against the dark, dusty, well-worn asphalt.

I might as well have tagged a gang symbol on the pavement, as Scully's face puckered, torn between a total loss and total amusement. "What the hell was that about?"

I could tell her. If I were any sort of decent human being, I would tell her, and see how far she got. But I wasn't, and the delight I was taking out of seeing the scientist mind of hers swirl into a suspiciously frenzy over nothing more than a scribble of paint on the road was just far too tempting. I stoically shrugged, biting back the sly grin as I quietly tossed the can into the trunk again, closing it firmly.

"Oh, you know…probably nothing." I returned to the car, waiting till I had settled in the driver's seat to glance back in the mirror, to watch her quietly confused reaction. It was a shitty thing to do, I knew that, but I felt no guilt as she studied the X on the ground thoughtfully for long moments, then turned on her heels and climbed back in the car, picking the file up between her fingers, and sliding underneath it, resting it back on her lap as she closed the door behind her. Then, as if nothing had happened, she returned to the files, her small, bow of a mouth puckering hard over the same notes she had now just spent easily seven hours tearing over.

Jesus….not even a shriek of indignation. I was obviously losing my touch.

"So, anyway," I continued, starting the car again. "Ray Soames' body…think you can be OK doing a quick once over once we exhume it, just to confirm the coroner's report."

"Shouldn't be a problem," she replied, with a tad more chill in her voice than she had displayed before the radio incident. I clearly had gotten to her after all. And the hell she was going to let me know that fact either. I had the feeling Dana Scully would rather swallow hot nails right now than to show me I had managed to worm my way under her collected exterior.

"Not a problem, Mulder, as long as you let me do my job." She glanced sideways at me, something hard glinting in her eyes. "Let me do my job, and I'm sure between the two of us we'll get to the bottom of whatever really caused those kids to disappear and die."

I wasn't so sure I liked the way she said "really". Still, in all fairness, I had laid down the challenging gauntlet. I was the one being a dick here. Let's see what the doctor could do. "Very well, Doc. The Sheriff is waiting for us at the cemetery, I thought we could stop there first, get right to work. Unless you really do have a taste for the local salmon right off the bat?"

"I'm here for work, Mulder, and not to fulfill a personal ambition….salmon or otherwise."

Touché, Agent Scully, I chuckle softly, reaching for another sunflower seed. Touché….


	5. Nine Minutes

Character: Fox Mulder

Fandom: The X-Files

Rating: PG-13

Prompt: Picture Prompt-Nekkid Cher as a fairy. Vol 27

Setting: Pilot

* * *

Nine minutes, gone in the blink of an eye.

Not even the god damn power going out could stop the frantic note taking as I scratched haphazardly across my legal pad by the light of a candle and a flashlight, my memory flipping though articles, studies, cases of missing time and abduction. I hadn't been sure, not at first, it had only been a hunch, a suspicion, unrelated clues tied together by the hint of what I hoped was evidence of extra-terrestrial activity. But this…this was the proof, the one link that confirmed it in my mind. Time loss…not for a second, or a minute, nine whole minutes, missing without reasonable explanation.

Universal invariant my ass, Doctor Scully, explain that little paranormal time trip to me. She had stared at me as if I was nuts, dancing around in the pouring rain, but she'd had no better explanation than I did, not with her physics degree or her background in medicine. She'd tried the whole way back to the hotel of course, rationalizing the weather, perhaps a unnoticed lightening strike, an atmospheric anomaly, none of which explained satisfactorily the fact that in a heartbeat we had gone from driving down the rain, slicked roads of Oregon at a normal pace to cruising in a suddenly dead car, nine minutes missing without either of us being aware how it happened.

I'd been exultant. She of course had not. Irritated, soaked, and mumbling words such as "unable to validate", Scully had retreated to her room, shooting me dark looks as she unlocked her door. I didn't want to be the one to point out to her that she'd been the one demanding to go out to the middle of the Oregon woods in a rainstorm, wanting evidence of any explanation for the strange marks found on Karen Swenson and Peggy O'Dell, evidence that didn't involve my explanation of alien abduction. I'd only been happy to oblige, curious to see what we would find out there myself and equally disappointed that Sheriff Miles had run us off despite our FBI credentials. What was he hiding out there? And why? Was he a part of whatever it was going on here, a party to the crimes committed against these kids? Somehow I doubted that, not when one of them was his son. Much more likely was the fact that he knew part of what was occurring in those words, perhaps he didn't understand it, but whatever it was it terrified him. And more than anything he wanted to ignore it, to hide it, to protect Billy from it. The question was now why? Was it because he feared that Billy was somehow nefariously involved, as I'm sure Scully believed, or because he feared that something else out there was effecting these kids, hurting them, killing them. I needed to see Billy Miles again, to see if he'd displayed any special behavior the night of Karen Swenson's death, he and Peggy both.

Nine minutes….I paused, breathless at the thought of what we experienced. Missing time. It was a common variant in alien abduction reports, but not something I'd ever thought I'd get to experience myself, evidence of a tangible sort of those very events. Scully could rationalize, explain away, and ignore all she wanted, she'd hardly be the first person to do so. I wonder what she'd write in her little report to Blevins? Swamp gas? Light from Venus reflecting off the rain? A momentary hallucination brought on by the hypnotic sound of rain on the car roof? How in the hell did any of that sound any more plausible or logical than a phenomenon verified and experienced by thousands of people?

The good doctor's logical little world was being threatened here, and she didn't like it one bit. Good, I shrugged, setting down my pen and rubbing my eyes, straining in the dim light. Scully could use with a bit of world-shaking. If she was really half of the scientist she claimed to be, she would be able to handle the tough questions, accept the fact that there were no clear answers in her way of thinking. Science, after all, had been more about the quest than the hard rule, the need to understand the unexplainable mysteries of the world we lived in. Somehow modern science had forgotten that, unable to handle anything that shook up or dislodged their accepted modes of thinking. I had hoped…and perhaps still did hope that Scully was one of the few who didn't fall into this mode. The jury was still out on whether she was or not.

I had to admit though, it was funny seeing her staring up at him in dubious amazement in the middle of a pouring rainstorm, looking angrier than a soaked cat. There was something deeply satisfying in burrowing under the smooth surface of Scully's equanimity. Sort of like that bubble wrap you can't help but pop between your fingers. I couldn't explain why it pleased me…perhaps it spoke to the profiler in me, that need to truly understand what made a person tick. I wanted to know what made Scully tick, no matter how hard she tried to shut me out. She was a puzzle…and admittedly interesting and fascinating one, much more so than I suspected she would be reading her case file. She was like a Victorian puzzle box, small and attractive, with new discoveries found with each different layer opened and uncovered.

Damn it all, they might just have known what they were doing in sending her to spy on me after all. I swallowed hard in a suddenly dry throat when it occurred to me just how dangerous having Dana Scully as a partner could be….whether the good doctor realized it or not. I don't think she did, in the brief two days I'd been around her, Scully struck me as being everything she presented herself to be, honestly, hard-working, devastatingly intelligent, wanting nothing more than to find answers. No, if there was anything nefarious about her placement as my partner, it wasn't coming from her. She was simply a tool, a pawn. Useful for her purpose and easily thrown away if it didn't work. But those who put her there…I wouldn't put it past them to have more in mind for Scully as my partner than simply deterrent to my work.

And I highly doubted that she even had any idea to what lengths they would stoop to remove me as a threat.

The dark turn to my own thoughts was cut short by the rapid, curt knocking at my door; the perfunctory clip that I knew had to come from my equally perfunctory partner. I glanced at my watch, surprised she would still be up at this time, and even more surprised she was even attempting to speak to me after the mood we had parted ways on. I suppose it was too much for me to hope she was here to make amends to tell me she'd thought it over, and realized my idea wasn't completely without merit. I think Scully would swallow hemlock before she ever admitted to time being anything other than a universal invariant.

Candle in hand, I swung open the door, expecting a full volley of her scientific rational, blasting into me about how I was an idiot for believing that time could just disappear. I hadn't expected to see her standing there in front of my motel door, looking as pale as milk in the dark, frightened worry in her normally even gaze. Nor to have her standing there in nothing but a bathrobe, shaking like a leaf, looking so childishly vulnerable it was disconcerting from a woman who'd spent two days convincing me she had titanium for a spine.

And she was still standing there in nothing but a bathrobe….

"Hi," I managed somewhat breathlessly. All other standard, polite forms of greeting seemed to somehow disappear beneath the fact that my partner was standing at my door in a state of some undress.

"I want you to look at something." Her voice shook as she stuttered the words, biting her bottom lip as her eyes focused on anything other than my stupidly blank face at that moment.

"Come in," I stepped back, allowing her in as I closed the door, wondering what in the hell could have spooked the even-keeled Agent Scully so badly she would come rushing into my room like a frightened three-year-old. After all, this was a woman who cut up dead people for a living. Despite my years as a profiler, even I felt squeamish once bodily fluids started getting involved. She paused, staring up at me, an entire play of careful thoughts and reasoning playing across her tense features, before without a word she turned her back on me and carefully slipped the robe off her pale, white shoulders.

Things like this just didn't happen to me, not even in my most vivid, sexual fantasies.

Granted, I knew I was no slouch when it came to women, despite my predilection for aliens, my obsessive self-centeredness, and my asshole nature, I still managed to con the occasional office worker or young DC intern into a date with me. Once in a blue moon it might even be more than that. But I can't say that in my experience with the FBI, not even with Diana, had I ever had someone just waltz into my hotel room and stand there nearly naked in front of me. Certainly not my upright, straight-laced partner of two day, who despite not being my type was clearly doing devastating things to my sense of self-control right this second.

Remember it's pouring down, icy rain outside Mulder, and think through this. Obviously for all of Scully being a spy, she isn't out to seduce you. Not with the terrified look in her eyes as she gazes up at me expectantly over one shoulder, looking so unhappily vulnerable. Recalling that yes, I was indeed a gentleman when it came down to it, I frantically gazed the expanse of smooth, pale skin in front of me, trying to figure out what it was that would cause her to react this way, without explanation. My eyes stopped at a row of red, raised bumps on the small of her back, just above the elastic of her plain, cotton underwear.

I bent over, eyes squinting in the dim light thrown by my candle on the area, running fingertips over the swollen spots, studying them as carefully as I could. The pattern and arranging of course was eerily similar, and I couldn't blame her for the panic. If I hadn't been surreptitiously scratching all evening, I might reacted that way to mosquito bites as well.

"What are they?" She tried so hard to sound calm, even when the anxiety was clearly tearing at her. I paused, unable to stop the smile that formed, realizing that seeing this chink in Dana Scully's armor was far less than weakening, and much more endearing. She was human after all, vulnerable just like we all are. And still very undressed in front of me the very male part of my brain reminded me.

"Mosquito bites," I assured her, standing up slowly, ignoring her perfume as I pulled away.

"Are you sure," she reached around again to feel, ever the doubter, as if my word on the subject somehow had to be verified by her questing fingertips.

"Yeah, I got eaten up myself." Put a silly face on it, Mulder, pretend this could have happened to anyone, play it relaxed, do not embarrass your new, uptight partner any more than she was probably already going to be once the robe slipped back over her shoulders. Spy she might be, but the poor woman just threw herself at you, trusting a perfect stranger alone in a room, with a bed, when she was nearly naked. The least I could do was repay that faith with as little discomfort as possible.

I hadn't expected her to throw herself at me, burying her face into my t-shirt.

It perhaps was the last thing I had expected out of Dana Scully….well, perhaps her wanting to sleep with me after that would have been the last thing, but this was close to it. She shivered as I wrapped a concerned, comforting arm around her, careful not to pour hot wax down her robe as I tried, clumsily, to give her some reassurance. I had of course been curious as to what the rational, logical Agent Scully had thought regarding all of this, aliens, abductions, strange bumps, missing time. But at no point had she ever showed a hint of anything but steady, detached distance from all of it, as if this were merely another random experiment in a lab, a theoretical case spun out of Quantico for her to dissect in one of her research papers.

Dana Scully was human after all. And what was more, she trusted me enough to let her see that. I had a feeling it was few and far between the number of people who ever got to see that side of her, the side that gave into fears, worries, and insecurities. Any other agent might have laughed it off, sucked it up and ignored it till it had driven them crazy, at which point they'd take their frustration out by snipping at me.

Those lost nine minutes must have spooked Scully out far more than she was even willing to admit. Welcome to my world, Dana, I thought as she slowly pulled away, wondering if she would be able to hack the strangeness of the X-files and all that came with it after all.


	6. Sleepless

Character: Fox Mulder

Fandom: The X-Files

Rating: PG-13

Prompt: The Letter M: What's wrong with you? All you talk about is aliens and ghosts and seeing Bigfoot in your garage!

Dib: He was using the belt sander...Vol 2. Week 23 on scifi_muses

Setting: Pilot

* * *

Leather smacked against hardwood with a satisfying slap, the hollow pinging of a basketball's bounce. It was a soothing sound for me, much more than the moans and gasps of video playing on my television, though I could probably say my downstairs neighbors hardly appreciated the constant, steady rhythm as the ball traveled between my fingertips and the ancient, warped hardwood of my living room.

_THWAP….THWAP….THWAP…._

Unlike the sunflower seeds, a habit I'd picked up from my father, the ball bouncing was a trait entirely my own, a hypnotic device I developed in long, lazy summers in Chilmark, ignoring the whining of the kid sister who annoyed me, and longing for adventures far away from our sleepy, New England village. I could still smell the scent of hot tar from newly paved roads, and the itch of humid sweat along my skin, and somewhere in the distance Samantha's call to come play catch with her, with an indignate groan of "your so boring" when I didn't heed her demands.

Lazy, golden days, encapsulated in the sound of a ball striking hardwood.

The clock read 11:15, and any sane person would have either been asleep or thinking about it. But insomnia and I were old buddies, even on the best of nights, hence the extensive collection of erotic videos, featuring surgically enhanced beauties with hair on their head that rarely matched whatever they were sporting under their skimpy lingerie. But even the siren call of bad porn had no lulling effect on me tonight. Instead it droned while I stared at the files on the coffee table, twitching and sliding with each contact of the ball on the floor.

Billy Miles paperwork was missing…gone. I know we had filed it with the DA in Oregon before we had left, despite the protests of the grief-stricken sheriff, his father. It had all had a sort of sad, unfortunate taste to it, the man had just gotten his son back after five years of catatonia, only to have him as the primary suspect in a murder case. I had tried to assure Sheriff Miles I didn't think Billy had a thing to do with it.

Of course he hadn't believed me, but he'd at least agreed to bring Billy in to meet Dr. Werber. Anything to save his son, I suppose. Which is why I found the entire paperwork debacle disturbing. It would be easy to say Miles and the DA back home had shared a wink and a nod between old friends, lost the paperwork, and conveniently let Billy go. But Miles and his son were here, and I had a feeling the DA of Raymond Co. had no desire to entangle himself any further with the FBI than he had to. So what had happened to the paperwork in such a high-profile local case? Where had it gone? More specifically, who had ordered it to go conveniently "missing"?

Damn it, it wasn't as if there would be much of a case anyway, I scowled, ceasing the ball's movements long enough to stand and pace, passing it between my fingers, as familiar as the drills I used to run in basketball practice in high school. I knew it the moment Blevins had called me in with his "lack of sufficient evidence," waving Scully's report under my nose. Scully's tepid conjectures, I glared briefly at nothing in particular, remembering my irritation at her high-handed way of saying she could neither affirm or deny my allegations. At least, I sighed bitterly, she hadn't come out saying directly I was crazy. But I could still feel it there, between the lines, the fact that she didn't buy what I was saying, even despite the unanswered questions she had voiced, the fact that she knew that the pieces did not fit cleanly together.

Yet she was still there, despite it all, asking those question….even if she did think I was crazy. She had come down to the office after her meeting with Blevins, carving out a nitch at the old table in the corner I used to pile old equipment and other odds and ends of detritus that had somehow made their way into the basement before I took it over. Dr. Dana Scully, with her shiny Stanford medical degree and all the promise before her here at the FBI stood there as tall as her three-inch high heels made her petite form, quietly cleaning out a corner for her to work in.

She didn't believe me, but she still wanted to be a part of the journey. I didn't know what to make of that. Could I really stand a partner who would stand there, questioning thought process ever step of the way with me? After all her words carried weight with the likes of Blevins and Skinner, one that could very easily shut down everything I had spent the last three years or so building up. But she had asked me to trust her, to give her credit that she wasn't here simply to shut him down or to discredit him no matter the cost. And God help him, I wanted to believe her.

I don't know why he did, really, I was as suspicious of an asshole as they came. But something about Dr. Scully drew me to her, with her willingness to at least listen to my theories, even if everything within her told her I was wrong, her unflappability even in the face of things that would drive another agent running, even her temper, riled when the facts made no sense to her. I should have shown her the door, run her off, dismiss her, but instead I sat in my hotel room, minutes after she showed up nearly naked, confessing the deepest, most personal pain of my life, the one secret that drove me like no other. As she entrusted herself with me, a perfect stranger, I entrusted her with the one, abiding hope I had.

She hadn't laughed, she hadn't patronized. Instead she showed nothing but perfect compassion and empathy, even if the whole situation confused her. Despite her cool logic and reason, it did nothing to take away from the heart and caring that seemed to override even her instinct that my beliefs were insane, my theories without basis. I wanted to believe that compassion, to hold on to it, even when good sense said I should get her out of my office as fast as I could.

_THWAP, THWAP, THWAP…._

The file on the table caught my eye, lit by the glow of an idealized woman writhing on top of a man who looked as equally idealized, having an encounter that I was sure most normal people never had in their lives. My world in the last three years had been reduced to such fantasies, ghosts across a screen, my human contact dwindling down the my dressings down from Blevins and the occasional date with a willing intern. The joke of the Bureau the former golden boy, rockstar, who had taken to the basement with his aliens and his paranormal cases, gibbering to himself in the dark.

Scully at least didn't take me for a gibbering madman…not yet at least. Without thinking, I reached for my phone, glancing through my scribbled notes on my desk for her home number. I needed to tell her about the missing paperwork, about the nature of this case. How convenient it went missing after we called Billy Miles in, after we heard his whimpered confessions of his abduction. No paperwork, no case, no way to investigate or search for the truth…no way for Billy Miles confession to get out into the public.

I glance at my watch. 11:21, she might be like every other normal, working American, in bed, asleep. The phone rings, once, twice, and I feel like an idiot for calling at this time of night, knowing that Scully has probably given no more thought to this case tonight than to file it away and prepare for a fresh start with Spooky Mulder in the morning. Finally, on the third ring there is a click and a brief moment of silence, as on the other end of the line a soft contralto murmurs soft and confused, a hint of worry in her voice. "Hello?"

"Scully? It's me, I haven't been able to sleep. I talked to the D.A.'s office in Raymond County, Oregon." I hardly pause to give her a word in edgewise. "There's no case file on Billy Miles. The paperwork we filed is gone. We need to talk, Scully."

She is quiet for so long, I wonder if she is even awake, if she even heard me. Perhaps she is simply wondering why her strange, obsessive partner is calling at this time of night demanding that they talk.

"Yes," she stuttered, uncertainty lacing her voice. "Tomorrow."

Without another word or even a goodbye, the line went dead.

Brilliant, Mulder, I frown, staring at the ringing receiver. Convince your new partner you are even weirder than she already thinks.

Why should I care if she thinks that or not?

_THWAP, THWAP, THWAP…_


	7. A Guy Walks Into A Bar

Character: Fox Mulder

Fandom: The X-Files

Rating: PG-13

Prompt: Picture of a table full of Guinness Vol 32 on scifi_muses

Setting: Deep Throat

AN: For the opposite side of this story, read "The Hit" at 1breath, (for the folks you can find it under Seasons: First.)

For those who don't know, you can now follow us on Twitter SciFi_Muses. Come read the authors or write yourself!

* * *

My fortress of solitude was being invaded.

Perhaps "fortress" was too strong of a word to put on to the tiny, basement hovel I had carved out for myself. But solitude wasn't, no one ever came down to the land of the Goblin spiders for anything, not even so much as "Hey, how are you doing?" I could be dead down there for all most FBI Agents cared, and I preferred it that way. Less chance of getting the long, speculative sideways looks, as if people expected me to whip out an anal probe and attempt to use it on them.

Not that a few people around this place might not need a good anal probe. Hell, a few might even like it.

The basement offered me a refuge from the whispers of "Spooky" Mulder that followed me like ghostly sighs along the hallways on any day I deigned to come up from the bowels of the Hoover Building. There I could research alien abductions and cattle mutilations, read up on the latest findings on psychic research, or catch up on the less serious but always engaging articles in my latest adult magazines. Who would have thought there could be such engaging stories in those type of things?

I suppose some would say it was something akin to a man-cave. But it was my office, my passion, my life's work there in those rickety cabinets and dusty corners, and it was now being turned up and disturbed by the efficient and neat Dana Scully. I should have expected it when she came back to my office after turning in her report, all optimism about us working together. I'd waved her vaguely in the direction of an old table I used to collect random bits of unused office equipment on and told her to knock herself out. I thought she'd glare at me archly, demand a real desk, and put an order in to requisitions so some twenty-something office monkey could bring something down for her.

She'd cleaned the entire area herself. Cleaned…really removing the layers of dust and grime off the ancient woodwork where she set herself up. I was vaguely stunned when I entered my office two days later to see her primly positioned behind the table, files organized, writing implements stored in a handy container, working on a laptop she had set up in the corner. Out of the sea of unwanted overhead projectors, broken typewriters, and un-sifted boxes of case files Scully had created a small island of calm. Orderly, exacting, clearly defined. Just like the agent who sat there.

I hated it.

Of course I hadn't said I hated it, I'd joked that if she was that handy cleaning off the table, perhaps I should let her have a crack at my bathroom. She'd been less than amused. And so began our new existence as partners, she in her personal bubble of tidiness in the corner, while I danced between my jumble of slide photos, the musty case files in their ancient cabinets, and the morass of magazines, newspapers, photographs, and reports still cluttering the area around my desk. It made sense to me in its own, chaotic sort of way, and I liked it that way.

I knew it drove her crazy, but Scully was, if anything unerringly polite, and the hell she was going to say anything about it. No when she could sit back and quietly question my methods. Still, it was an odd jarring of my personal space, the work I had built for myself with the X-files for the past three years. I liked my world, the familiarity of the madness. Scully stood out against it like a French wine at a kegger. Sitting there with her notes and doubts, eying my collection of pornographic magazines with a silent but pointed raised eyebrow.

She'd caught on I'd left those in prominent view on purpose.

I don't know why I suggested the bar to meet, I wasn't exactly that big of a drinker save for the occasional beer. I suspect it was more just the impulse of getting her away from that table, out of my fortress and into a setting where I wasn't constantly reminded of how jarring her presence was there. I had planned to be out at the Pentagon that day anyway, I had a question or two for the Department of Defense regarding a phone call I'd received from an Anita Budahas about a still missing husband taken into Air Force custody months ago. I figured on the swing back I could coax Scully out to lunch, see what the picture perfect agent was like when she wasn't married to her laptop and case notes.

Unsurprisingly, I was running late, and the bar I'd chosen mostly because I passed it on my way home every night was packed to the gills with the sort of up-and-coming Washington wannabes that made me want to kick their asses for simply existing. The skeeziness practically oozed out of the door, the sort of political jostling that sent me screaming for the basement in the first place. They jammed into the place like sardines, slamming cheap beers and scotch and sodas to fortify them for their long afternoons of power brokering and closed-door meetings, playing desk jockey for the powerful of DC. Hell a job like that, I might need to have a few in me before I went back to the office.

I scanned the sea of dark suits and macho postures for the telltale red hair of my partner. Granted, I couldn't tell Forest Green from Black three-fourths of the time, but I could still pick out Scully's bright hair in the dim light streaming in from the afternoon window. She sat perched up on a high barstool, just as prim and proper as if she was sitting at her table in the office, a stack of files at her elbow. Typical, the woman was as bad about work as I was it seemed. Automatically I turned towards her, glancing around the crowded room for a table where the two of us could sit like civilized adults, beginning to regret this idea of the bar anyway. But I paused when I saw the man who slipped beside her with a wide, apologetic, charming smile.

It was a fairly old move, as far as pick-up methods were concerned. Accidentally spill your drink, not enough to cause a scene, but enough to have to apologize profusely, and then turn on the charm and slip a line in there while their guard is down. A tactic used by all the smoother college kids out there, but usually not so effective once the women have reached the experience level to catch on to the act. Curious, I watched the tableau, interested in seeing how my partner handled herself.

I don't know why I found it interesting…I find a lot of human interactions interesting, watching people in various situations, how they react to cues both expressed and unexpressed. The cock of a head, the small smile given after speaking, a glimmer in the eye, all telling signs of the interaction going on. I couldn't help myself, the study of such behavior was what I did, part of how I saw the world. So much could be spoken in those simple, wordless gestures, volumes of conversation most of us never pick up on. I watched the interplay between my partner and this stranger. He was interested, albeit in a passing sort of way, obviously he was a man who didn't get a chance to see many pretty women period. Scully on the other hand was politely not, but flattered all the same. I don't see why she should be surprised, she's an attractive woman, and this can't be an uncommon occurrence for her. Still, the man persists…he doesn't look like a guy used to rejection. Definitely more than a desk jockey for a Congressman, he's an up and coming Washington player, perhaps works for a Senator, has eyes on something bigger, oozes that charm and confidence that only politicians ever seem to have, but with a cocky arrogance that reminded me a tad of someone else I knew intimately.

Maybe I could have been him if I'd gone into politics or the State Department, like Dad wanted. He had much more in the way of people skills than I did, though clearly not enough to impress the likes of Dr. Scully. Politely she turned away all further inquiries as crestfallen her would-be hot date turned and wandered off, already re-writing the events of that interplay in his mind, he wasn't shot down, he was simply being polite. I could see him doing it even as he wandered back to his cluster of other DC go-getters, drink in hand. By this evening, when he's still in the office at 9 at night, he'll have forgotten the pretty red head. I'm certain that by now Scully has already forgotten him.

Pity, I shrug as I make my way to her, he seemed nice enough. Did Scully have someone in her life? Funny, I hadn't asked. She seemed fairly closed mouthed about anything particularly personal in the short time we've shared office space. Though I had picked up on the small photograph on her desk, a faded photo of what I surmised were the Scully children, Dana in the middle, one of the smallest of the bunch, hanging off her elder brother's shoulder. Everything else about my new partner's personal life was still a mystery.

Which is perhaps just how she wanted it. Seems I wasn't the only emotionally distant person in this arrangement.


	8. Rescued

Character: Fox Mulder

Fandom: The X-Files

Rating: PG-13

Prompt: Nora Charles: [suffering from a hang-over] What hit me?

Nick Charles: The last martini. Vol 2 Week 28 on scifi_muses

Setting: Deep Throat

* * *

Flashes of light, I could feel myself running, but knowing it was useless. There was an oxygen mask slipped over my face, pressing down on my nose as someone stood over me with a needle, faceless heads hanging over me as I tried desperately to remember why I was there, and what they were doing to me. What was going on?

Scully was going to be fucking pissed at me.

I came to cold and shivering, huddled in a concrete cell, no bed, no pillow, not even a place to take a piss. My bladder protested that fact loudly as I peeled my face from off the cold, smooth cement, a layer of sweat and grim filming it thickly as I rubbed it, trying to assess where the fuck I was and how the fuck I got there. I remembered vague things, flashes of memory. Scully and I at Ellens Air Force Base, being run off the road by assholes in dark suits, Scully's furious face as I pulled out of the parking lot of our crappy motel, to go…where? Where was I again? Ellens? Perhaps, I couldn't remember exactly. Strange, I always remember, everything, I'd had an eidetic memory since childhood. With the exception of my sister's abduction, there were few things in my life I couldn't remember with perfect clarity.

A cold, rivulet of fear snaked through my gut as I stood up, turning towards the windowless, plain, gray door. Why couldn't I remember? And where the hell was Scully? Was she safe? And did she knew where I was? My head ached as I scrambled towards the door, fists pounding on the metal and screaming for someone, anyone to let me out. My only response was the echo of my own shouts bouncing off the walls inside my prison.

Fuck!

The flashes of needles and men in masks came to me, but were torn and fragmented, slithering through my fingers like sand as I tried to hold on to them. Had someone done something to me? I couldn't recall. Had it been a dream? It was possible, God knows what the hell lurked in my subconscious. How long had I been here? Did anyone plan on coming for me? Did they care? Why was I in my current predicament. God, my head hurt.

I pounded and screamed again, till my voice was hoarse and raw, but it only made my ears ring and my stomach turn as my head threatened to crack and shatter. Dejected I crumbled by the door, pressing my temple against the cold metal, willing the nausea to pass as I closed my eyes. Scully was going to be fucking pissed with me…that was if this wasn't the loony bin and she hadn't been the one tossing me in here.

Something told me I couldn't get so lucky.

I drifted on a sea of drowsiness and pain, the headache worsening as I shifted to the floor, much as I had when I woke up. It hurt to breath, to think, to exist, and yet I wasn't willing to twitch or even vomit with nothing in the room to catch it. I was so still my muscles ached with it, and had lost track of the hours I must have been this way. I could die here like this, I thought, as somewhere in the distance the sound of booted, solid feet down a tile hallway vaguely caught my attention. Still, it wasn't enough to cause me to jump to my feet, in fact the idea of doing that made me want to puke. So I remained, my face glued to the floor, sweat coating my brow as I cracked my eyes just enough to watch the door carefully and see who entered.

The boots indeed stop at the metal door, and opened it with a clattering of keys and a coldly impersonal press of the door as the boots came to rest in front of my nose. I tried to look up but only managed to see army fatigues and gave up trying to get a good look at my visitor. Not that he seemed to care one-way or the other anyway.

"On your feet." The boots barked at me with all the warmth and compassion I had come to associate with the United States Army. I wanted to articulate an appropriate response, something involving where he could shove his orders, or at the very least a silent but eloquent raising of my right, middle fingers. But even that proved to be too much for me. All I could manage was a vague sort of whimper.

Whether that impressed Full Metal Jacket or not, he seemed to get the message I wasn't moving of my own volition. His steel enforced toes turned briefly to the hallway, and I heard him barking something else to someone else, obviously not nearly as incapacitated as myself. Returning back into the room he was followed by two other pairs of boots, identical to the most senior down to the bright shine glossing them from toe to ankle. I wondered how pissed they would be if I puked my guts out on them?

"Get him up," the first pair of boots ordered, as none-too-gently hard hands grasped my forearms and yanked me up off the floor, pulling at the skin of my cheek which had become glued to the cement with sweat and dirt, and ignoring the ominous moan I made as my head snapped back far too quickly for my aching brain to take. I could feel the bile creeping up my throat even as they forced me to my feet.

"Looks like he might blow, corporal," one of them warned ominously, perhaps catching the way I was blearily eyeing his spiffy green camo uniform.

"Get him to the facilities, ASAP," the corporal snapped as if this only seemed to be common sense. I think the good corporal realized quickly how nasty this situation was about to become. "Let him get cleaned up, he's wanted in fifteen."

Wanted? Where? Thoughts of signs up with my face on them bubbled to the surface, eliciting a small, hysterical giggle out of me as the two privates…I assumed they had to be privates, escorted me to a cold, efficient bathroom, waiting pointedly outside the door with bland, blank eyes. Good, I suppose they didn't care if I horked my guts up, which I promptly did with as much dignity as I could muster. I then promptly took the longest piss of my goddamn life, before stumbling to the sink to drowned myself in water so cold it turned my cheeks numb.

I was at a military base. Ellens, it had to be Ellens, and these were regular Army soldiers, not Air Force. Someone was protecting something…I could feel it skating on the edges of my broken memory, just beyond my reach. Damn it all.

"You in there…get your ass out here, you are wanted." One of the privates tried vainly to emulate the clipped, bombastic tones of his superior, but managed only to sound like a surly, teenaged kid. Grimly I reached for the paper towels over the sink and dry my face, wondering what they "wanted" with me, and what the hell Scully would have to say about that.

Did she even know what was going on?

My escorts ever so kindly reached for me as I came out the door, and in lock step practically drug me down the hall, impressive seeing how long my legs were. But I felt stupid and clumsy, my feet unable to move as my boots skidded across the tile, tripping and stumbling as I tried to keep upright. Despite both looking young enough to have barely gotten drivers licenses, both men seemed hardly phased as I slumped between them, drug as it were out to a lonely, quiet hanger, where a single jeep and two more camo clad Army bucks stood looking at me with faces as impassive as the pair who held me.

"Get him inside," one of them ordered to the other two, who wordlessly followed their fellow drones command, unceremoniously dumping me in the back seat of the Jeep without even so much as a smile or a "see you later". I was left with their counterparts, neither of whom bothered to look at me as I tried to scramble more fully into the Jeep, glancing between the two as they climbed in the front.

"Where are you taking me?" I demanded with as much righteous indignation as I could muster given that I wasn't entirely sure I wasn't going to puke again. Neither bothered to respond to me as the Jeep's engine started, and the soldier behind the wheel slipped it into first gear.

"Where are we going?"" I repeated it louder, but got the same, silent response. Great, Mulder, I thought, you just managed to piss off the US Army doing something you can't even fucking remember, and they could be doing anything to you at the moment. I could have seen secret new weapons, sensitive equipment, hell, ET could have walked up to me and said hi, and I fucking didn't know at this moment. I couldn't even remember what happened to me, or why it was there was a giant, glaring, bottomless hole in my otherwise perfect memory.

It was that thought that scared me more than anything else. I didn't remember what had happened to me. It could have been anything…and it was all missing, gone, like someone had gone into my memory and plucked it right out. Like they had Budahas. Shit, I sighed, rubbing my eyes, willing the pain in my head to subside. The cool air on my face as the speed picked up helped. But it would do me little good if these two Army fucks decided to dump me in the middle of nowhere, or leave me stranded with no way to get help. Or they could simply just kill me. That possibility floated to mine with a sickening jerk as I watched wordlessly, the Jeep zipping past nameless military bunkers, faceless, lifeless, with no clue as to their purpose or their meaning.

Nothing to see here, move along.

Twenty minutes later, past miles of rolling, Utah scrubland we came to a fence with a simple gate and outpost. It wasn't the main entrance to Ellens, I realized, but perhaps it was a back service entrance. Somewhere in the front I heard the chatter of a two-way radio, and one of my drivers responding. Slowly the vehicle pulled up to the gated fence, directly facing opposite of a unassuming sedan parked right in the middle of our way.

It looked like a vehicular game of chicken, I thought half-hysterically, swallowing the giggle that rose to my lips as the Jeep stopped, and one of my gracious hosts turned to me with a blank scowl. "You…out."

"Why," I asked more on asshole reflex than any good, sensible reason. I must be feeling somewhat better if I could pull out being a dick to two men with guns. When no answer was forthcoming, somehow better sense made it through my knee jerk anger, and I quietly, if none to steadily climbed out of the Jeep, wondering what new horror was going to be visited on me.

I turned, bleary eyed to the unfamiliar sedan, and paused in stunned confusion as the reporter, Paul Mossinger, marched up to me, face black and angry, as behind him on the passengers side of the car stood my partner. She stood so still it took me a moment to notice the gun trained rock steady at the back of Mossinger, her face so hard I'd of thought she was made of marble if I hadn't seen even from this distance the blazing anger in her blue eyes. She would shoot him without even a second thought. And I paused, dumbfounded, as it occurred to me that this coldly calculating woman was my partner, and she was standing there prepared to kill a man in order to get me.

Holy hell.

Mossinger was certainly less than pleased to be caught this way. Obviously he wasn't the reporter he was making himself out to be, and somehow this fact hardly surprised me. I was just stunned that Scully figured it out, got him to tell her where I was. How? And what had she done to put Mossinger in this sort of situation. We met halfway between the gate and the sedan, and his eyes turned up to mine, disdainfully looking me up and down.

"I just want to say, everything you've seen here is equal to the protection we give it. It's you who have acted inappropriately."

I blink at him, swaying ever so slightly on my exhausted feet. What the hell had I seen? And why was it so important that they had to rip away from me one of my most precious gifts, my own goddamned memory? Mossinger turned from me and returned to the gate. I managed to stumble to the car, all the while watching Scully with vague amazement. Her aim never faltered, her eyes hardly flickered to me as she continued to watch Mossinger till I managed to weave my way to the car. I fell into the passengers seat, sinking gratefully into the soft cushion of it, watching quietly as Scully silently let up her aim and got into the car.

Without a word she started it up, and peeled it around, driving like a bat out of hell down the blacktopped road.

"You OK, Mulder?" It was the first words out of her mouth when we had finally put enough distance between ourselves and Mossinger and the gate.

I didn't know…hell, I couldn't say. Frankly I wanted to do nothing more than curl up in a ball and whimper. But how would that look in the face of a woman who had been my partner for mere weeks, and who had just managed to threaten and coheres a man who quite possibly would have killed her without a second thought? Damn, I breathed, my partner was so not what I expected…not in the slightest.

"I don't know," I managed to choke. I had nothing else really to say.


	9. Liver and Onions

Character: Fox Mulder

Fandom: The X-Files

Rating: PG-13

Prompt: Grim: Why does the fate of humanity always end up in the hands of an idiot? Vol 2 Week 24 on scifi_muses

Setting: Squeeze

AN: Some borrowed dialogue

* * *

I watched Scully's right, index finger tap slowly in the crook of her left arm, folded and crossed with the other across her chest. Partners for only two months, I was already beginning to read the small ticks and signs that made Dana Scully work, the tiny flickers that were usually the only indication of her thoughts or mood. Scully's face was immutable as always, closed and calm, looking as collected and professional as she always seemed to be. But that tapping finger, the manicured nail dragging across the twill of her suit coat was the only clue to the nervousness coursing through Scully at the moment.

What was it about her friend that made her so nervous? Was it him….or was it me?

I had heard of Tom Colton peripherally, like all hot shots like I had been once, names got around. Unlike me, Colton wasn't getting around because of his brilliance but because of his "potential". This usually was FBI code for a political kiss ass that knew how to play the system to his best advantage, scaling the ladder of FBI hierarchy to a cushy desk job with a modicum of power. This type practically grew on trees in Quantico, each new graduating class turned out a whole new crop of them who landed the top spots in main offices. They all had just enough talent and skill to prove useful and competent at their jobs, but with the moral compass of your average sociopath. Justice was a word that they used only if it made them look good, truth important only in terms of getting the next job promotion. Trust…that was something they always seemed to demand of people, but never earned for themselves in return.

How one of these sleazy assholes ended up friends with Scully was the real mystery to me. As brilliant as she was, I would have thought she'd have picked up on the smarminess of Colton instantly, shying away from it like anyone with intelligence and a drop of integrity would. Still I didn't know this Colton, all I had gathered on him was from the flotsam and jetsam of the FBI rumor mill and my own, personal experience with pricks like him. Perhaps he was a charming prick? Most of these types were it was how they got as far as they did without the skills or brilliance to back it up.

"So you're friend…he's running late?" I casually glance around the unfortunately deceased Mr. Usher's office, noting how the man's desk sat slightly askew, the bloody smears on the wall and carpet, the lack of any signs of struggle other than in the area in which he sat and the door that he had clearly been slammed against. Most of the rest of the evidence was gone, anything portable with prints or bloodstains, papers, cups, pens. They hadn't left a hell of a lot at the crime scene to go on.

"Tom called while we were on our way over, said he was in a meeting, I imagine it ran a tad late, yes." Scully apologized for Colton so quickly; you would have thought they were still sleeping together. The key word being "still", I had only suppositions, but I was amazingly good with a hunch. Scully's private life was as closed as the woman herself was, and just about as easy to pry open. Beyond the basics I'd gleaned from her FBI file, I knew she was seeing someone casually, someone named Ethan, who apparently wasn't anything serious, and that she had a fondness for coffee that was bordering on the edge of alarming.

But I was a student of human behavior, and something told me that it had to be more than smarmy charm that linked Scully to the likes of Colton. "So you've known Colton since 'ye-olde-Academy' days?" I nonchalant probe, an innocent question. Heavy-handed and obvious did not work with the likes of Dana Scully.

"Tom was part of the group of us who went through the Academy together, yes," she shrugged, glancing quickly at her delicate wristwatch, then at the door, impatience glimmering fleetingly in her eyes. "You know how it is, there's always a core group of you that goes through together, become chummy."

Perhaps for the likeable Scully there was. "Remember, I was the FBI wunderkind, the smart kid in school. No one likes them, not even in the FBI Academy." Which wasn't entirely true…perhaps a few of the female cadets had spoken to me, but not because they felt chummy.

"A loner even then," Scully's look of distant impatience turned to curiosity in an instant. What sort of picture was I painting for her, the brilliant, but misunderstood genius who cracked under the pressure and hid in the basement?

"Well I had a buddy or two, and other companionship." I left it tactfully at that, more to earn the dry snort and gentle eye roll that accompanied the words than to brag about it. Once again, my efforts to shock and dismay the coolly collected Agent Scully came up short. "I graduated top of my class, by default that made me ineligible to become 'Miss Popularity'."

"I don't know, I did well at Quantico and still had a group of people I was close to."

Well isn't it nice to be smart and popular? Was she truly that annoying in high school too? "Must be why they went running to you when crazy shit hit their case and not me"

If she was going to get uppity about it, let's start calling spades, spades. Convenient that her friend Colton pops into Washington, all smiles over an expensive lunch, and asks her to join him on a case that sounds suspiciously like an X-file. Chummy, friendly, popular old flame or not, I had to honestly wonder if Colton would have bothered remembering his old, Academy buddy if she wasn't assigned to the X-files, and if his ass wasn't on the line with this case.

And I knew Scully was smart enough to see exactly where I was going with it. Her eyes narrowed, thin lines of brilliant blue as her teeth chewed in agitation on the inside of her cheek. "Is that what is bugging you? That they came to me?"

Yes and no. Colton could bite me for all I cared, but the X-files were my work, my passion, my division. My insight was what made them what they were, and Scully for all of her talents was still just an observer here. What in the world could she bring to their case if they really, truly suspected something strange here? "I want to know why they came to you, the skeptic assigned to debunk me."

That stung her a bit; I could see it, that reminder of what she was to my work. "Perhaps because they knew I worked with you."

That took a lot for her to admit. And I only felt like slightly an ass for even bringing it up. ""So why didn't they ask me?"

"They're friends of mien from the Academy," she reminded me, again with that apologetic tone, that need of hers to protect them and cover for them. "I'm sure they just felt more comfortable talking to me."

How reasonable she sounded, I thought, staring at her. What was this, high school? Was she the sympathetic, popular girl who was stuck with the geeky outsider for a class assignment? "Why would I make them so uncomfortable?" How old were we again?

Annoyance and regret warred as she met my irritation evenly. Trust Scully to never back down even in the face of certain uncomfortably. "It probably has more to do with your reputation," she shot back primly.

"Reputation?" Jesus, this was high school. "I have a reputation?"

Of course I had a reputation, she knew it, I knew it, Colton sure has hell knew it. I just wanted her to admit that this was what all this bullshit was all about.

"Mulder, look," again with the reasonable tone, the placation, the apology. As if the basement had somehow dulled me to the way politics works in the FBI. "Colton plays by the book and you don't. They feel your methods, your theories are…" She paused, a tell tale flush rising across her pale cheeks, the frank gaze dropping in immediate embarrassment before the word could trip off her tongue.

"Spooky?" I supplied it for her, causing her to duck her head even as I muttered the term I heard whispered down the halls about me. It wasn't the first time I had heard it, but it was the first time I heard it from her. She had never said it, had never hinted at it, though I knew she hear it. Perhaps she even believed it herself.

I couldn't decide whether to be angry or amused.

"Do you think I'm spooky," I murmured, low and hushed. The mix of sarcasm and flippancy surprised her; I could see the defense formulating even as someone from outside pointed out that we were in the room, announcing Colton's arrival.

Flustered Scully couldn't get her old pal Colton in there fast enough.

And just as I suspected he was as greasy a son-of-a-bitch as I suspected. I could lube my entire care engine with it as he fell all over himself, apologizing to "Dana". I bristled at that slightly. No real reason, after all he knew her before she was ever Special Agent Scully. And hell, not everyone is neurotic about their fucking first name as I am. Of course, not everyone is fucking named Fox either.

"Fox Mulder, this is Tom Colton." Scully's tone was light, but I could hear her silent plea to please play nice with her old boyfriend. I at least met his handshake firmly, mentally reminding myself to wash my hands later.

"Mulder," Tom's smile was shit eating, as if the son-of-a-bitch cared about impressing me. "What do you think? Does this look like the work of little green men?"

I take it back, not even asshats in high school were this, fucking childish. Is this what it took to get through the ranks of the FBI? I mentally wondered about Colton's skills at _fellatio, _as the twelve-year-old in me decided to fight fire with fire.

"Grey," I corrected simply, as both Scully and Colton stared at me blankly.

"Excuse me," Colton's eyes flickered with laughter back to Scully, as if expecting her to speak up with an explanation for me.

"Grey. You said green men. A Reticulan's skin tone is actually grey; they're notorious for their extraction of terrestrial human livers. Due to iron depletion in the Reticulan galaxy."

He went asshole first. I only reciprocated in kind.

Colton's round face paled, then reddened, his eyes widening in alarm as he gurgled in confusion. "You can't be serious."

Goddamn, I should have gotten into acting; at least there you can expect fuckwits. "Do you have any idea what liver and onions go for on Reticula?"

Colton looked as if he wanted to choke on his own tongue. I could feel the laser beams of Scully's angry eyes on me, but didn't care. Frankly I was impressed I'd behaved myself this well. Biting back a delighted smile I nodded cordially. "Excuse me." Fuck, if Colton was here to schmooze with Scully, let him schmooze, I could at last peruse the crime scene in peace.


	10. Souvenirs

Character: Fox Mulder

Fandom: The X-Files

Rating: PG-13

Prompt: Run Baby Run-Garbage Vol 2 Week 31 on scifi_muses

Setting: Squeeze

AN: I'm attempting an X-files/White Collar crossover to stretch my writing and creative muscles a bit. Check it out at the X-files Crossover page under White Collar, or My Stories, Named "Returns".

* * *

_Fox…help me, Fox…._

Jesus….

My alarm hadn't gone off yet, but the dimming light through my living room window told me it would soon. Samantha's screams seemed to shimmer in the early, evening gloom as I pealed myself off the leather of my couch, my skin sticky with the remembered fear of a very old nightmare. I frowned blearily at the clock, 5:45, scrubbing at the stubble on my face, trying to shake off the vestiges of sick fear that churned in my stomach sourly. Shower, coffee, fall into car, call Scully.

No phone calls regarding Tooms while I slept, but had I really expected it. I doubted with the parting jibe of "spooky" from Colton's fine specimens of special agents that they would have seen much. I wouldn't have left the detail if it weren't regulations, those two looked like they could hardly find their ass with a roadmap and directions. My only hope was that Scully had managed to get there to check in on them, even if she thought this was all as mad as they did. She at least would respect me enough to allow my theory to play out before discrediting it, unlike Colton who'd rather just use it as a way to cut me down in order to make himself look good. Had he honestly thought he had impressed Scully with that bullshit? Hell, I'd known the woman weeks, only a couple of months, and I knew she'd not put up with the childish games and juvenile condescension. Perhaps Colton had missed that when he was busy laying claim to her as another link in his FBI connection chain.

I huddled under the scalding spray; scouring the last vestiges of Samantha's cries off my skin as I tried to wake up, focus on the case. Tooms would go back there to 66 Exeter at some point; it was his nature, what came naturally to him. In my mind the entire spread of Tooms, his behavior, the way he thought spread out before me in a weave of patterns that was as clear as any picture, any memory I ever had. Tooms was a creature of solitude, disjointed from time and society, with the only locus tying him to anything was that of place. Whenever he came into existence, that place had always been his center of being, the one thing he could hold on to when the times and society changed. It was why he kept his nest there, even despite the inherent danger of discovery, and it was where he kept his most precious things. He'd go back, hopefully before he found his next victim.

I hoped he'd go back before finding his next victim. Thus far, Colton's bungling of the case, his unwillingness to even one, tiny mental leap out of his comfort zone had allowed for one more murder, perhaps a second before it was said and done. No wonder the prick had finagled me onto the case; Colton was just smart enough to be dangerous. He recognized he had no talent with profiling or with serial killers, but wasn't smart enough to listen to me about it. That was more ego than it was common sense, to be honest. Colton was pissed that Scully would dare to side with me over him in this argument, the schoolyard brawl. As if Dana Scully was a piece of property the fight over, the pretty cheerleader whose attentions were to be vied over like a stupid, teenage movie.

Ignoring the images of my partner in a cheerleading skirt that came to mind, I considered Colton's behavior this entire case. His level of personal anger leveled at me, especially at the latest crime scene, certainly indicated his aggressive territorialism had kicked up several notches. Perhaps he feared I would hit some home run out of the ballpark with this, Spooky Mulder strikes again with his crazy but brilliant theory, and steals the limelight from Colton. Perhaps, it seemed the most likely. Like the jock in school who feared the science nerd winning the popularity contest. When had the lives of the people we as FBI agents swore to protect become a popularity contest? And just where did Colton get off telling my partner he was going to get her transferred out of the X-files?

My partner…I pause halfway through knotting my tie, staring at the scrap of silk in the mirror. That was a rather territorial statement to match the territorial behavior Scully mentioned. I hadn't meant it to be particularly territorial. Scully was my partner because she was assigned to work with me, not because I demanded her presence. Hell, I'd resented the fuck out of it, tried to convince her this was a bad idea, a horrible career move, why the hell would she want to work with Spooky Mulder, who chased aliens and mourned over a long, gone sister? She had ignored me, and stayed despite my protests. I had no claim over Scully; the decision in the end had been up to her, not up to me.

That wasn't to say I didn't feel the desire to punch Colton in the fucking face the minute he even insinuated he'd use whatever clout he thought he had to get Scully off the X-files. Not that he could, I had a feeling Colton thought his political sway reached much farther than it did, and I suspected that whoever assigned Scully to work with me would hardly be swayed by Colton's ass-kissing abilities enough to take her off. Still, it was that cocky, brash assurance, that look in his eye when he stared down at her, assuring her he'd get her off. As if she didn't want to be with me, with the work.

I ignored the small voice in my head that suspiciously still wondered aloud if she really ever wanted to be with the work, if she wasn't simply here for someone's agenda, nothing more. Yes or no, I reasoned, she chose this, chose to stick it out in the basement rather than get a hand back up the ladder she had been on before she met me. That had to take a lot for Scully to say, to admit to. After all asshole or not, he had been her friend long before she ever met me, and if I hadn't come on bored she might have been his friend long after. I had no desire to part Scully from the people she knew, the relationships she had built up, and certainly not from her career. And I wouldn't blame her in the slightest if she jumped off this crazy train right now and went tearing back to regular FBI work. It might be safer for her in the long run.

I thought of the look she gave Colton this afternoon, the way her eyes hardened, her small, pointed chin had lifted, the way she seemed to grow from her petite height in front of my eyes as she stared the taller man down. Somehow I didn't think I would win that argument, and the hell I was about to get into it with her. I saw what she did to the other guy.

Dressed and out the door, I grabbed my badge, weapon, and phone and ran for my car, late already to try and get through the worst of the traffic between DC and Baltimore. Hopefully Scully would be there for the change in shifts, before the natives got restless. Hours of sitting in a dark, abandoned alley would make them more resentful than they already were, and I braced myself for more "Spooky" cracks, flipping through the AM dial for sports talk, anything to distract myself from the shit traffic and the swirl of facts on the case, the unceasing processing my brain usually engaged in. I welcomed discussion on the Orioles latest losing streak, Yankess fan that I was, and tried to focus on anything other than my own assurance that Tooms was our man, and Colton was fucking this case up.

I was almost in a good mood when I pulled down the alley by 66 Exeter Street. No car….no surveillance…no Scully even. Where the hell was everyone.

"Hello," I call as I look around. Had they just left without bothering to call for back up? I looked down at my cell phone, but no message had been left there, and no one had called before I left DC. What the hell? Without thinking I rushed inside the dilapated building, its rotting, brick walls musty and dank in the darkness as I pulled out my flashlight, looking for any sign of Tooms. It was still, dust dancing in the single, white beam of my florescent bulb as I spun around, listening.

No sound…no sign. Perhaps he hadn't come back, which meant that not all was lost. I felt relief war with anger as I took to the stairs to Tooms' lair in the basement. I knew my protocol as well as the jackass Colton, and nothing in it said anything about leaving a suspect under surveillance alone for…however the fuck long? I'd filed the appropriate paperwork, had gone through the right channels, there was no reason for there not to be the men I asked for outside of this building.

I choked on the scent of mold and bile as I descended, the sour mixture gagging me as I shined the light about the small, cramped space, taken up by the strange, disturbing nest of old newspaper and yellowish, green fluid. Nothing seemed out of place or strange, in fact it looked as if Tooms hadn't been back to his lair sine they last were in it anyway. Nothing seemed out of place in there, not even the table with his trophies.

I stopped, the light shining on the small objects, the little trinkets that Tooms collected, my heart stopping painfully as the light shined on one anomaly. A long, thin gold chain, that held a large locket on its length, nestled alongside a small trinket box. Already my memory spun to land on the image of the locked, laying twisted under the suit jacket of Scully's outfit, caught strangely at an angle that made me reach out to hook a finger under it, to tug it and catch her attention.

I didn't remember getting in my car, or racing for the highway towards DC, only that I prayed to God I didn't get stopped by some cop along the way as I drove like a maniac, cell phone to my ear. She wasn't answering her cell, and she wasn't at home. Could she be out? Was she in and just not available? Could she already be dead?

"Damn it, answer," I shouted at the phone, knowing it was futile, and throwing it in frustration on the seat beside me. It slid to the floor, bouncing hard against the door, and out of my reach. Shit, brilliant Mulder, can't even call Metro PD now to check out her apartment. Now mid-evening, traffic was at last cooperating, in just twenty-five minutes, without a flashing light in sight. I almost wished I had gotten stopped, so I could have gotten the police on the line and out to her house.

I'd only been to Scully's house physically once, to drop off files we were working on, and I thanked whatever deity was out there for my eidetic memory as I tore through Georgetown's streets, my sedan tires screaming as I turned sharply onto Scully's street. My brakes protested as I slammed to a stop in front of her building, already reaching for weapon.

I heard muffled screams as I entered the building and blindly ran to her door, falling into my training automatically as I kicked down Scully's locked door, and rushed in, calling her name as I could hear her struggling somewhere in the back, glass breaking and shattering. My gone is already up as I turn the corner and aim for Tooms, but before I can even tell him to stop, Scully's on top of him, all 5'3 and one hundred pounds of her trying desperately to wrestle him, even as he grabbed her around the throat, his wiry strength stopping her.

It hadn't gotten him down, but it was enough to distract him as I reached for the cuffs on my belt, slamming on end over the hand trying to choke the life out of my partner, before his elbow slammed into my chest, the wind knocked so hard out of me I crumple to the ground. Some fucking rescue, Mulder, you should have fucking shot the bastard.

I expected Tooms attacks to fall on me next, but they don't come, as with an outraged cry Tooms found himself locked to Scully's bathtub, chained to the faucet, seething like a crazed animal as he jerked and glared. Double-jointed or rubbery he might be, but he still lacked on liver, and for whatever reason he couldn't slip out of my cuffs. He seethed as he glared up at me hatefully, and I resisted the overwhelming desire to simply punch him in the mouth with the butt of my gun.

"You all right," I turn to Scully, leaning against the wall, her blouse un-tucked and unbuttoned as she tried to pull it over her bare midriff, her breath rising and falling rapidly as she nodded ever so slightly. She said nothing, trying desperately to regain the composure she shrouded herself in at all times, the icy calm, but I could see it. For the briefest of moments she stared at Tooms, terrified and shaken, before the veil came down.

Somehow I felt slightly disappointed by that. "Well," I sighed, nodding at the still writhing Tooms. "He won't get his quota this year."

For whatever reason, this caused Scully to smile.


End file.
